martyr of myself. Lead me to it."
"We'll have another quick one. Here's Warren. This is Lord Peter
Wimsey. This is on me."
"On me," corrected the photographer, a jaded young man with a
disillusioned manner. "Three large White Labels, please. Well, here's
all the best. Are you fit, Sally? Because we'd better make tracks. I've
got to be up at Golders Green by two for the funeral."
Mr. Crowder of Crichton's appeared to have had the news broken to him
already by Miss Twitterton, for he received the embassy in a spirit of
gloomy acquiescence.
"The directors won't like it," he said, "but they've had to put up
with such a lot that I suppose one irregularity more or less won't
give 'em apoplexy." He had a small, anxious, yellow face like a
monkey. Wimsey put him down as being in his late thirties. He noticed
his fine, capable hands, one of which was disfigured by a strip of
sticking-plaster.
"Damaged yourself?" said Wimsey pleasantly, as they made their way
upstairs to the studio. "Mustn't make a practice of that, what? An
artist's hands are his livelihood--except, of course, for Armless
Wonders and people of that kind! Awkward job, painting with your toes."
"Oh, it's nothing much," said Crowder, "but it's best to keep the paint
out of surface scratches. There's such a thing as lead-poisoning. Well,
here's this dud portrait, such as it is. I don't mind telling you that
it didn't please the sitter. In fact, he wouldn't have it at any price."
"Not flattering enough?" asked Hardy.
"As you say." The painter pulled out a four by three canvas from its
hiding-place behind a stack of poster cartoons, and heaved it up on to
the easel.
"Oh!" said Hardy, a little surprised. Not that there was any reason
for surprise as far as the painting itself was concerned. It was a
straight-forward handling enough; the skill and originality of the
brush-work being of the kind that interests the painter without
shocking the ignorant.
"Oh!" said Hardy. "Was he really like that?"
He moved closer to the canvas, peering into it as he might have
peered into the face of the living man, hoping to get something out
of him. Under this microscopic scrutiny, the portrait, as is the way
of portraits, dislimned, and became no more than a conglomeration of
painted spots and streaks. He made the discovery that, to the painter's
eye, the human face is full of green and purple patches.
He moved back again, and altered the form of his question:
"So that's what he was like, was he?"
He pulled out the photograph of Plant from his pocket, and compared it
with the portrait. The portrait seemed to sneer at his surprise.
"Of course, they touch these things up at these fashionable
photographers," he said. "Anyway, that's not my business. This thing
will make a jolly good eye-catcher, don't you think so, Wimsey? Wonder
if they'd give us a two-column spread on the front page? Well, Warren,
you'd better get down to it."
The photographer, bleakly unmoved by artistic or journalistic
considerations, took silent charge of the canvas, mentally resolving
it into a question of pan-chromatic plates and coloured screens.
Crowder gave him a hand in shifting the easel into a better light. Two
or three people from other departments, passing through the studio on
their lawful occasions, stopped, and lingered in the neighbourhood of
the disturbance, as though it were a street accident. A melancholy,
grey-haired man, temporary head of the studio, vice Coreggio Plant,
deceased, took Crowder aside, with a muttered apology, to give him some
instructions about adapting a whole quad to an eleven-inch treble.
Hardy turned to Lord Peter.
"It's damned ugly," he said. "Is it good?"
"Brilliant," said Wimsey. "You can go all out. Say what you like about
it."
"Oh, splendid! Could we discover one of our neglected British masters?"
"Yes; why not? You'll probably make the man the fashion and ruin him as
an artist, but that's his pigeon."
"But, I say--do you think it's a good likeness? He's made him look a
most sinister sort of fellow. After all, Plant thought it was so bad he
wouldn't have it."
"The more fool he. Ever heard of the portrait of a certain statesman
that was so revealing of his inner emptiness that he hurriedly bought
it up and hid it to prevent people like you from getting hold of it?"
Crowder came back.
"I say," said Wimsey, "whom does that picture belong to? You? Or the
heirs of the deceased, or what?"
"I suppose it's back on my hands," said the painter. "Plant--well, he
more or less commissioned it, you see, but----"
"How more or less?"
"Well, he kept on hinting, don't you know, that he would like me to do
him, and, as he was my boss, I thought I'd better. No price actually
mentioned. When he saw it, he didn't like it, and told me to alter it."
"But you didn't."
"Oh--well, I put it aside and said I'd see what I could do with it. I
thought he'd perhaps forget about it."
"I see. Then presumably it's yours to dispose of."
"I should think so. Why?"
"You have a very individual technique, haven't you?" pursued Wimsey.
"Do you exhibit much?"
"Here and there. I've never had a show in London."
"I fancy I once saw a couple of small sea-scapes of yours somewhere.
Manchester, was it? or Liverpool? I wasn't sure of your name, but I
recognised the technique immediately."
"I dare say. I did send a few things to Manchester about two years ago."
"Yes--I felt sure I couldn't be mistaken. I want to buy the portrait.
Here's my card, by the way. I'm not a journalist; I collect things."
Crowder looked from the card to Wimsey and from Wimsey to the card, a
little reluctantly.
"If you want to exhibit it, of course," said Lord Peter, "I should be
delighted to leave it with you as long as you liked."
"Oh, it's not that," said Crowder. "The fact is, I'm not altogether
keen on the thing. I should like to--that is to say, it's not really
finished."
"My dear man, it's a bally masterpiece."
"Oh, the painting's all right. But it's not altogether satisfactory as
a likeness."
"What the devil does the likeness matter? I don't know what the late
Plant looked like and I don't care. As I look at the thing it's a damn
fine bit of brush-work, and if you tinker about with it you'll spoil
it. You know that as well as I do. What's biting you? It isn't the
price, is it? You know I shan't boggle about that. I can afford my
modest pleasures, even in these thin and piping times. You don't want
me to have it? Come now--what's the real reason?"
"There's no reason at all why you shouldn't have it if you really want
it, I suppose," said the painter, still a little sullenly. "If it's
really the painting that interests you."
"What do you suppose it is? The notoriety? I can have all I want of
_that_ commodity, you know, for the asking--or even without asking.
Well, anyhow, think it over, and when you've decided, send me a line
and name your price."
Crowder nodded without speaking, and the photographer having by this
time finished his job, the party took their leave.
As they left the building, they became involved in the stream of
Crichton's staff going out to lunch. A girl, who seemed to have been
loitering in a semi-intentional way in the lower hall, caught them as
the lift descended.
"Are you the _Evening Views_ people? Did you get your picture all
right?"
"Miss Twitterton?" said Hardy interrogatively. "Yes, rather--thank you
so much for giving us the tip. You'll see it on the front page this
evening."
"Oh! that's splendid! I'm frightfully thrilled. It has made an
excitement here--all this business. Do they know anything yet about who
murdered Mr. Plant? Or am I being horribly indiscreet?"
"We're expecting news of an arrest any minute now," said Hardy. "As a
matter of fact, I shall have to buzz back to the office as fast as I
can, to sit with one ear glued to the telephone. You will excuse me,
won't you? And, look here--will you let me come round another day, when
things aren't so busy, and take you out to lunch?"
"Of course. I should love to." Miss Twitterton giggled. "I do so want
to hear about all the murder cases."
"Then here's the man to tell you about them, Miss Twitterton," said
Hardy, with mischief in his eye. "Allow me to introduce Lord Peter
Wimsey."
Miss Twitterton offered her hand in an ecstasy of excitement which
almost robbed her of speech.
"How do you do?" said Wimsey. "As this blighter is in such a hurry to
get back to his gossip-shop, what do you say to having a spot of lunch
with me?"
"Well, really----" began Miss Twitterton.
"He's all right," said Hardy; "he won't lure you into any gilded dens
of infamy. If you look at him, you will see he has a kind, innocent
face."
"I'm sure I never thought of such a thing," said Miss Twitterton. "But
you know--really--I've only got my old things on. It's no good wearing
anything decent in this dusty old place."
"Oh, nonsense!" said Wimsey. "You couldn't possibly look nicer. It
isn't the frock that matters--it's the person who wears it. _That's_
all right, then. See you later, Sally! Taxi! Where shall we go? What
time do you have to be back, by the way?"
"Two o'clock," said Miss Twitterton regretfully.
"Then we'll make the Savoy do," said Wimsey; "it's reasonably handy."
Miss Twitterton hopped into the waiting taxi with a little squeak of
agitation.
"Did you see Mr. Crichton?" she said. "He went by just as we were
talking. However, I dare say he doesn't really know me by sight. I
hope not--or he'll think I'm getting too grand to need a salary." She
rooted in her hand-bag. "I'm sure my face is getting all shiny with
excitement. What a silly taxi. It hasn't got a mirror--and I've bust
mine."
Wimsey solemnly produced a small looking-glass from his pocket.
"How wonderfully competent of you!" exclaimed Miss Twitterton. "I'm
afraid, Lord Peter, you are used to taking girls about."
"Moderately so," said Wimsey. He did not think it necessary to mention
that the last time he had used that mirror it had been to examine the
back teeth of a murdered man.
* * * * *
"Of course," said Miss Twitterton, "they had to say he was popular with
his colleagues. Haven't you noticed that murdered people are always
well dressed and popular?"
"They have to be," said Wimsey. "It makes it more mysterious and
pathetic. Just as girls who disappear are always bright and home-loving
and have no men friends."
"Silly, isn't it?" said Miss Twitterton, with her mouth full of roast
duck and green peas. "I should think everybody was only too glad to
get rid of Plant--nasty, rude creature. So mean, too, always taking
credit for other people's work. All those poor things in the studio,
with all the spirit squashed out of them. I always say, Lord Peter, you
can tell if a head of a department's fitted for his job by noticing
the atmosphere of the place as you go into it. Take the copy-room,
now. We're all as cheerful and friendly as you like, though I must say
the language that goes on there is something awful, but these writing
fellows are like that, and they don't mean anything by it. But then,
Mr. Ormerod is a real gentleman--that's our copy-chief, you know--and
he makes them all take an interest in the work, for all they grumble
about the cheese-bills and the department-store bilge they have to turn
out. But it's quite different in the studio. A sort of dead-and-alive
feeling about it, if you understand what I mean. We girls notice things
like that more than some of the high-up people think. Of course, I'm
very sensitive to these feelings--almost psychic, I've been told."
Lord Peter said there was nobody like a woman for sizing up character
at a glance. Women, he thought, were remarkably intuitive.
"That's a fact," said Miss Twitterton. "I've often said, if I could
have a few frank words with Mr. Crichton, I could tell him a thing or
two. There are wheels within wheels beneath the surface of a place like
this that these brass-hats have no idea of."
Lord Peter said he felt sure of it.
"The way Mr. Plant treated people he thought were beneath him," went on
Miss Twitterton, "I'm sure it was enough to make your blood boil. I'm
sure, if Mr. Ormerod sent me with a message to him, I was glad to get
out of the room again. Humiliating, it was, the way he'd speak to you.
I don't care if he's dead or not; being dead doesn't make a person's
past behaviour any better, Lord Peter. It wasn't so much the rude
things he said. There's Mr. Birkett, for example; _he's_ rude enough,
but nobody minds him. He's just like a big, blundering puppy--rather a
lamb, really. It was Mr. Plant's nasty sneering way we all hated so.
And he was always running people down."
"How about this portrait?" asked Wimsey. "Was it like him at all?"
"It was a lot too like him," said Miss Twitterton emphatically. "That's
why he hated it so. He didn't like Crowder, either. But, of course, he
knew he could paint, and he made him do it, because he thought he'd be
getting a valuable thing cheap. And Crowder couldn't very well refuse,
or Plant would have got him sacked."
"I shouldn't have thought that would have mattered much to a man of
Crowder's ability."
"Poor Mr. Crowder! I don't think he's ever had much luck. Good artists
don't always seem able to sell their pictures. And I know he wanted to
get married--otherwise he'd never have taken up this commercial work.
He's told me a good bit about himself. I don't know why--but I'm one of
the people men seem to tell things to."
Lord Peter filled Miss Twitterton's glass.
"Oh, please! No, really! Not a drop more! I'm talking a lot too much
as it is. I don't know what Mr. Ormerod will say when I go in to take
his letters. I shall be writing down all kinds of funny things. Ooh! I
really must be getting back. Just look at the time!"
"It's not really late. Have a black coffee--just as a corrective."
Wimsey smiled. "You haven't been talking at all too much. I've enjoyed
your picture of office life enormously. You have a very vivid way of
putting things, you know. I see now why Mr. Plant was not altogether a
popular character."
"Not in the office, anyway--whatever he may have been elsewhere," said
Miss Twitterton darkly.
"Oh?"
"Oh! he was a one," said Miss Twitterton. "He certainly was a one. Some
friends of mine met him one evening up in the West End, and they came
back with some nice stories. It was quite a joke in the office--old
Plant and his rosebuds, you know. Mr. Cowley--he's _the_ Cowley, you
know, who rides in the motor-cycle races--he always said he knew
what to think of Mr. Plant and his motor-tours. That time Mr. Plant
pretended he'd gone touring in Wales, Mr. Cowley was asking him about
the roads, and he didn't know a thing about them. Because Mr. Cowley
really had been touring there, and he knew quite well Mr. Plant hadn't
been where he said he had; and, as a matter of fact, Mr. Cowley knew
he'd been staying the whole time in a hotel at Aberystwyth, in very
attractive company."
Miss Twitterton finished her coffee and slapped the cup down defiantly.
"And now I really _must_ run away, or I shall be most dreadfully late.
And thank you ever so much."
* * * * *
"Hullo!" said Inspector Winterbottom, "you've bought that portrait,
then?"
"Yes," said Wimsey. "It's a fine bit of work." He gazed thoughtfully at
the canvas. "Sit down, inspector; I want to tell you a story."
"And I want to tell _you_ a story," replied the inspector.
"Let's have yours first," said Wimsey, with an air of flattering
eagerness.
"No, no, my lord. You take precedence. Go ahead."
He snuggled down with a chuckle into his arm-chair.
"Well!" said Wimsey. "Mine's a sort of a fairy-story. And, mind you, I
haven't verified it."
"Go ahead, my lord, go ahead."
"Once upon a time----" said Wimsey, sighing.
"That's the good old-fashioned way to begin a fairy-story," said
Inspector Winterbottom.
"Once upon a time," repeated Wimsey, "there was a painter. He was a
good painter, but the bad fairy of Financial Success had not been asked
to his christening--what?"
"That's often the way with painters," agreed the inspector.
"So he had to take up a job as a commercial artist, because nobody
would buy his pictures and, like so many people in fairy-tales, he
wanted to marry a goose-girl."
"There's many people want to do the same," said the inspector.
"The head of his department," went on Wimsey, "was a man with a mean,
sneering soul. He wasn't even really good at his job, but he had been
pushed into authority during the war, when better men went to the
Front. Mind you, I'm rather sorry for the man. He suffered from an
inferiority complex"--the inspector snorted--"and he thought the only
way to keep his end up was to keep other people's end down. So he
became a little tin tyrant and a bully. He took all the credit for the
work of the men under his charge, and he sneered and harassed them till
they got inferiority complexes even worse than his own."
"I've known that sort," said the inspector, "and the marvel to me is
how they get away with it."
"Just so," said Wimsey. "Well, I dare say this man would have gone on
getting away with it all right, if he hadn't thought of getting this
painter to paint his portrait."
"Damn silly thing to do," said the inspector. "It was only making the
painter-fellow conceited with himself."
"True. But, you see, this tin tyrant person had a fascinating female
in tow, and he wanted the portrait for the lady. He thought that, by
making the painter do it, he would get a good portrait at starvation
price. But unhappily he'd forgotten that, however much an artist will
put up with in the ordinary way, he is bound to be sincere with his
art. That's the one thing a genuine artist won't muck about with."
"I dare say," said the inspector. "I don't know much about artists."
"Well, you can take it from me. So the painter painted the portrait as
he saw it, and he put the man's whole creeping, sneering, paltry soul
on the canvas for everybody to see."
Inspector Winterbottom stared at the portrait, and the portrait sneered
back at him.
"It's not what you'd call a flattering picture, certainly," he admitted.
"Now, when a painter paints a portrait of anybody," went on Wimsey,
"that person's face is never the same to him again. It's like--what
shall I say? Well, it's like the way a gunner, say, looks at a
landscape where he happens to be posted. He doesn't see it as a
landscape. He doesn't see it as a thing of magic beauty, full of
sweeping lines and lovely colour. He sees it as so much cover, so many
landmarks to aim by, so many gun-emplacements. And when the war is over
and he goes back to it, he will still see it as cover and landmarks and
gun-emplacements. It isn't a landscape any more. It's a war map."
"I know that," said Inspector Winterbottom. "I was a gunner myself."
"A painter gets just the same feeling of deadly familiarity with every
line of a face he's once painted," pursued Wimsey. "And, if it's a
face he hates, he hates it with a new and more irritable hatred. It's
like a defective barrel-organ, everlastingly grinding out the same old
maddening tune, and making the same damned awful wrong note every time
the barrel goes round."
"Lord! how you can talk!" ejaculated the inspector.
"That was the way the painter felt about this man's hateful face. All
day and every day he had to see it. He couldn't get away because he was
tied to his job, you see."
"He ought to have cut loose," said the inspector. "It's no good going
on like that, trying to work with uncongenial people."
"Well, anyway, he said to himself, he could escape for a bit during his
holidays. There was a beautiful little quiet spot he knew on the West
Coast, where nobody ever came. He'd been there before and painted it.
Oh! by the way, that reminds me--I've got another picture to show you."
He went to a bureau and extracted a small panel in oils from a drawer.
"I saw that two years ago at a show in Manchester, and I happened to
remember the name of the dealer who bought it."
Inspector Winterbottom gaped at the panel.
"But that's East Felpham!" he exclaimed.
"Yes. It's only signed T.C., but the technique is rather unmistakable,
don't you think?"
The inspector knew little about technique, but initials he understood.
He looked from the portrait to the panel and back at Lord Peter.
"The painter----"
"Crowder?"
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather go on calling him the painter.
He packed up his traps on his push-bike carrier, and took his tormented
nerves down to this beloved and secret spot for a quiet week-end. He
stayed at a quiet little hotel in the neighbourhood, and each morning
he cycled off to this lovely little beach to bathe. He never told
anybody at the hotel where he went, because it was _his_ place, and he
didn't want other people to find it out."
Inspector Winterbottom set the panel down on the table, and helped
himself to whisky.
"One morning--it happened to be the Monday morning"--Wimsey's voice
became slower and more reluctant--"he went down as usual. The tide was
not yet fully in, but he ran out over the rocks to where he knew there
was a deep bathing-pool. He plunged in and swam about, and let the
small noise of his jangling troubles be swallowed up in the innumerable
laughter of the sea."
"Eh?"
"[Greek: kumatôn anêrithmon gelasma]--quotation from the classics.
Some people say it means the dimpled surface of the waves in the
sunlight--but how could Prometheus, bound upon his rock, have seen it?
Surely it was the chuckle of the incoming tide among the stones that
came up to his ears on the lonely peak where the vulture fretted at his
heart. I remember arguing about it with old Philpotts in class, and
getting rapped over the knuckles for contradicting him. I didn't know
at the time that he was engaged in producing a translation on his own
account, or doubtless I should have contradicted him more rudely and
been told to take my trousers down. Dear old Philpotts!"
"I don't know anything about that," said the inspector.
"I beg your pardon. Shocking way I have of wandering. The
painter--well! he swam round the end of the rocks, for the tide was
nearly in by that time; and, as he came up from the sea, he saw a man
standing on the beach--that beloved beach, remember, which he thought
was his own sacred haven of peace. He came wading towards it, cursing
the Bank Holiday rabble who must needs swarm about everywhere with
their cigarette-packets and their kodaks and their gramophones--and
then he saw that it was a face he knew. He knew every hated line in it,
on that clear sunny morning. And, early as it was, the heat was coming
up over the sea like a haze."
"It was a hot week-end," said the Inspector.
"And then the man hailed him, in his smug, mincing voice. 'Hullo!' he
said, 'you here? How did you find my little bathing-place?' And that
was too much for the painter. He felt as if his last sanctuary had
been invaded. He leapt at the lean throat--it's rather a stringy one,
you may notice, with a prominent Adam's apple--an irritating throat.
The water chuckled round their feet as they swayed to and fro. He felt
his thumbs sink into the flesh he had painted. He saw, and laughed to
see, the hateful familiarity of the features change and swell into an
unrecognisable purple. He watched the sunken eyes bulge out and the
thin mouth distort itself as the blackened tongue thrust through it--I
am not unnerving you, I hope?"
The inspector laughed.
"Not a bit. It's wonderful, the way you describe things. You ought to
write a book."
"I sing but as the throstle sings,
Amid the branches dwelling,"
replied his lordship negligently, and went on without further comment.
"The painter throttled him. He flung him back on the sand. He looked at
him, and his heart crowed within him. He stretched out his hand, and
found a broken bottle, with a good jagged edge. He went to work with
a will, stamping and tearing away every trace of the face he knew and
loathed. He blotted it out and destroyed it utterly.